Our Congressman are arguing vigorously about whether the tax cuts for those earning over $250k a year should be renewed or allowed to expire. If you're a Paygo person, believing that all payments or tax cuts should be paid for as you go, then you need to know where the money will come from to pay for this tax cut. Who is supplying the money those earning over $250k a year aren't? That makes sense.
What doesn't make sense is how Congressmen on one side of the aisle argue that this is a tax cut for the wealthy, while those on the other side argue that allowing the tax cut to expire would harm small businesses. They appear to be arguing with each other, but are saying completely different things. In addition to not being an economist, I'm not a trained mediator. However, in my experience, if there's an argument the first thing that has to be done is to clarify what's being argued about.
It would be really great if everyone sat down calmly and answered the following questions:
- Does this tax cut benefit those earning over $250k year?
- Are those who earn over $250k always wealthy enough that taxing them like this is not unnecessarily burdensome? Always? Some of the time?
- Would this have a negative impact on small businesses? Just a small percentage of them, or most?
- If it would harm small businesses what could be done so they wouldn't be harmed?
It's a straw man argument. How many small businesses, with employees, operate out of the owner's personal checking account and don't file its own tax return? You're only one angry customer or one malicious ex-employee away from personal bankruptcy.
ReplyDeleteI don't even have employees and I have both an S-corp and an LLC between me and the people I service... neither of which benefit from the tax cuts that Boehner & Co are arguing for.